As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)
By Ronald N. Guy Jr.
Jan 2, 2023: Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati was
electric. The Buffalo Bills had traveled
from western New York to the chilly shores of the Ohio River for a pivotal late-season
showdown with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Both teams were jockeying for playoff seeding and figured, along with
the Kansas City Chiefs, to be the prohibitive favorites to represent the AFC in
the Super Bowl. The matchup was
happening in prime time, on the venerable Monday Night Football, and before
schools, work and life’s hectic tempo had fully resumed from the holiday
breather - it was the perfect night for football.
The game started as expected; the fervor somehow
pumped out of the heart of the stadium, through television feeds and into the
beings of every lucky football soul watching it. With Cincinnati leading 7-3 with just over
six minutes remaining in the first quarter, Bengals QB Joe Burrow connected
with WR Tee Higgins over the middle. As
Higgins crossed midfield, he collided with and was tackled by Buffalo S Damar
Hamlin.
It was an innocuous play. Television coverage panned to the crowd, then
to Higgins as he walked back to the huddle.
Play-by-play announcer Joe Buck casually noted that another Bills player
was down. NFL fans are trained to listen
for clues. A quick replay or joint being
tended to by trainers can indicate the nature of an injury. Mention of a cart is bad news; lack of
evident movement and immobilization measures are far worse. Hamlin’s situation quickly moved beyond the
imaginable football injuries. Within
minutes an ambulance was the on field and CPR was being performed. Hamlin was in cardiac arrest.
In the weeks since, Hamlin has made a remarkable
recovery, the latest feel-good evidence being his first public statement
released last week via Instagram. And
with his progress has come an opportunity to contemplate what happened that
night, how Hamlin’s life was saved and what else it says about the course of
human existence.
The most obvious standing ovation goes to the medical
personal at Paycor Stadium and the Cincinnati and Buffalo hospitals who tended
to Hamlin. Imagine running to a downed
player’s aid expecting to encounter a dislocated shoulder, a balky knee or a
high ankle sprain – routine football stuff - and finding a player in cardiac
arrest. To have the skill and poise to
perform so exquisitely in those precious moments after Hamlin collapsed, and
then to nurse him back to health in the weeks that followed…simply
amazing.
Few, if any, have been in Hamlin’s situation on that
fateful Monday night. But roam this
planet long enough and every one of us will face a health crisis – either
personally or with a loved one. The odds
of developing cancer alone in one’s lifetime is roughly 40%. In those sobering moments, you are completely
dependent on the talents of others. Where
those medical experts hail from, the color of their skin, their gender identity
– all the divisive, and sometimes hateful nonsense that infects humanity - is reduced
to rubble.
Widen the aperture.
Look around. The appliances in
your house. The “phone” in your
hand. The food on your table. The goods that efficiently move around the
globe. The mail that gets picked up and
delivered daily. The knowledge being
conveyed in classrooms. The stuff –
cars, HVAC units, leaky pipes – that gets repaired by tradesmen. The grocery shelves that are always
stocked. The coffee and gas that is
consistently available at convenience stores.
How did these things get created?
How did they get delivered? How
is it all maintained?
The world: what an extraordinary machine.
There has been much rhetoric in recent years about the need for nationalism, for America to look inward, to end support for Ukraine, to build walls and to retreat into tribes, etc. and so forth. Worse, pre-existing prejudices have been preyed upon and weaponized to breed division and weaken our shared cause. The reality is we need each other. All of us. Doing our things. We are interconnected and interdependent - for the mundane, the underappreciated, the assumed and for desperate situations when a life hangs in the balance.
